QUESTIONS - Should Christians Judge Outsiders？
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Harmful content
Misogyny
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Summary
Kevin Wendt asks a question about Christians getting involved in politics, abortion, and the pro-life movement. "Is it not those inside the church who are to judge?" Pastor Ken answers this question and explains why the church has a role in this.
Transcript
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How would you answer someone that brings up 1 Corinthians 5, verse 12 and 13
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in opposition to the church and Christians getting involved in the political sphere,
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even the abortion mill ministries, et cetera. I believe that theonomy is good. And in the
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post-millennial hope, I am just wondering the best way to answer this. Thank you. All right,
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let me find it. First Corinthians chapter five. I know exactly what you're talking about,
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but I want to be able to read the text. First Corinthians chapter five, verse 12 and 13
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says this, for what do I have to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom
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you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. Oh my goodness,
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if I had a dollar every single time, a well-meaning but very foolish Christian quoted that
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in order to say that we shouldn't care about politics, I would be a very, very rich man.
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Let me read it one more time. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those
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inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from
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among you. All right. First, for what have I? Who's I? The apostle Paul. What is the apostle
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Paul? He's an apostle. An apostle of the world? An apostle of the civil magistrate? An apostle
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of medicine. No, an apostle in the church. He has a position of ecclesiastical authority
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commissioned by Christ in his church. So Paul is saying, I, as a churchman, as a clergy member of
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sorts, the highest to be sure, but as a clergyman, what business do I have with judging people
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outside of the church? I am a leader in the church. That's my domain. Then he goes further.
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then he says, is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? Who's the you? So the I
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is the Apostle Paul. What is the Apostle Paul? A clergyman in the church. Who's the you? The you
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is the entire city of Corinth. No, it's the church at Corinth. It's the saints. It's members
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in the church. So he's saying, is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? This is
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who you're supposed to judge. Then verse 13, he says, God judges those outside. Purge the evil
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person from among you. And what he's saying in that case is he's talking about the man who
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had sexual relations with his stepmother, a kind of sexual perversion not even heard of
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among the Gentiles. And he's saying he needs to be excommunicated, handed over to Satan. He needs
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to be removed from the roster of the church. Treat him as a tax collector or a Gentile,
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no longer regarding him as a brother for the saving of his soul, the destruction of his flesh,
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but the saving of his soul, which is in fact what happened because when Paul writes back to the
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Corinthian church in second Corinthians chapter two, he tells him to welcome that same man. I
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believe it's the same man back in. All right. So Paul is basically what he's saying is, look,
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we're not judging outsiders here, but we are judging those in the church. And we got a guy
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in the church right now who needs to be purged. That's what Paul's saying. So I, as an authority
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in the church, I deal with the church. And you as members of the church make judgments also. You have
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a role in this judgment, not just me top down, but the church itself needs to corporately and
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in a unified sense needs to purge this evil person from among the church. Now, all that being said,
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verse 13, he says, God judges those outside the church. Now, here's the deal. Let's look at that
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real quick. You guys are going to love this, right? The favorite text of everybody to quote
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over the last two and a half years, Romans 13. What? Romans 13. Here we go.
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Romans 13. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority
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except from God. God sovereignly appoints human civil magistrates, and those that exist have been
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instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed,
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and those who resist will incur judgment. Go back, 1 Corinthians 5, verse 13. God judges those
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outside, but how? By what means? Through what agency? There is a human agency that God uses
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For rulers are not a terror to those who do good,
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Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?
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an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. So 1 Corinthians 5, verse 13,
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God judges those outside. How? By the avenger that God instituted, by the servant of God,
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by God's deacon, the civil magistrate. He's the one who carries out God's wrath on the outsider.
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right? So you have not two kingdoms. Get that garbage out of here. You have three spheres,
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the home, the church, and the state. The home, the church, and the state. There are leaders,
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fathers, I would say. This is the father's world. He works through fathers. This is patriarchy.
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There are fathers in each of these three spheres that are in authority, that rule, and are called
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to rule righteously according to the scripture. There are familial fathers in the home. The father
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is the head of his children. He's certainly the head of his wife. The scripture teaches this.
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There are ecclesiastical fathers in the church. There's a reason why elders, leaders in the church
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are to be men. And there are fathers in the civil magistrate. Now I understand that we have a bunch
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of women in positions of high up civil authority, but that's God's judgment. That's not something
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to boast about. It should be men, right? Because the civil magistrate bears the sword and the sword
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belongs to men, not women, despite what, what female elf wields the sword, you know, in the
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rings of power in God's world, according to God's word, men are the ones who wield the sword and
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the sword belongs to the civil magistrate. It should be men. They're the ones who are called
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to rule. So all that being said, um, you have three different spheres and certainly in terms
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of the people, there are overlap, right? Um, people who belong to the church also belong to
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families, and they also belong to a sovereign nation. They are citizens in a nation. So there
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are multiple different identities and belongings that each of these people have. But what Paul is
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saying when he says, hey, it's not my business to judge outsiders, great, because he's an apostle.
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And you, and in what sense is he speaking to the Corinthians in that instance? He's talking about
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you insofar as it regards your status as church members are not to judge those outside, but to
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judge those inside. And right now you need to judge this particular person by rendering a
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righteous judgment, excommunicating him, handing him over to Satan in line with the teachings of
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Christ in Matthew chapter 18, church discipline. Okay. That's what he's saying. But he's not saying
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that no one judges outsiders. Yes, he says God judges outsiders, but we know that this is also
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Paul, Romans chapter 13. How does God judge outsiders? Through people, through people,
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but it's another sphere. So he uses the leaders in that sphere, but those leaders are supposed
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to be God's servants, right? Caesar is not God. Caesar submits to God. Caesar is a servant of God.
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Yes. Separation of church and state as two sovereign spheres. Yes. And amen. Separation
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of Christ and state. No, we do not want an ecclesiocracy, a church run state or a state
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run church, which is what we've had for several decades. Now we don't have a church run state,
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but we do have a state run church. We don't want either. We want a separation of church and state,
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but we don't want a separation of Christ and state. That means we reject ecclesiocracies,
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but we would adhere to a theocracy. We do adhere to that. We believe that Christ is king. Here's
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the deal. Christ is king of kings. Ever heard that line before? Christ is king of kings. Okay.
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which kings is he king of? Earthly kings. Christ is king over the kings of this earth,
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over the civil magistrate, over Caesar. These guys are, now certainly we have plenty of tyrants.
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We have plenty of people in the realm of the civil magistrate that have rejected the lordship,
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the kingship of Christ. But that's not how it has to be. That's not how it's supposed to be.
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And that's not how it ultimately will be as the great commission advances and the gospel goes
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forth and we make disciples of all nations. Here's the deal. Just think about this logically
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for a second. This is what you ultimately have to theologically affirm in order to get rid of
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theonomy. What you would have to say is that a Christian cannot, cannot in a moral righteous
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sense serve in any position in the state. Christians cannot be service members in the Navy
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or the air force or the army or the Marines, uh, Christians cannot be police officers.
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They cannot run for local office. They can't be council members. They can't be governors. They
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can't be, um, they can't be, uh, judges. They, they can't be president. They can't, none of that.
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That is a thoroughly unbiblical and sin. It's a sin for Christians to be in the civil magistrate.
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That's a position you would have to hold because the only alternative position is that,
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is that God calls people. We see this in 1 Corinthians 7. Now, I understand it's primarily
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talking about marriage as the case study, but the principle, I believe, applies to other realms and
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other examples as well. God calls people, God saves people, and they should remain in the station
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of life in which they were in when God called them. Now, not in every instance, right? So like
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if you're a criminal and you get saved, well, you exit that career. You go ahead and retire
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from your career being a criminal. But what if you're a Philippian jailer? What if you're a
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centurion? What if you're Felix, a governor? You know what I mean? Like what happens when you're
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in the civil magistrate? And here's the deal, Jesus addressed these things. There were Roman
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soldiers who asked Jesus, what does it look like for us now as Christians to live a Christian life,
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to be your disciples. And Jesus says, well, you must exit that realm. You must quit your job.
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Nope. Jesus does not say that. Jesus says, you must do your job Christianly. Jesus does not say
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it is Christian to get out of that job in the civil magistrate. No, he says a Christian civil
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magistrate just needs to do his civil magistrate job in a Christian way, in an ethical way,
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not exploiting, not oppressing, but in an ethical way, according to whose standards? Caesar's. No,
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no, Caesar doesn't get to decide what belongs to Caesar. Yes, we are called to render unto Caesar
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what belongs to Caesar. The question is who decides what belongs to Caesar? Well, it's the
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king above all kings, Jesus, Jesus. So all this being said, what business do we have judging
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outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? Great. Yes. That's speaking
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about our role as church members. Paul speaking as a church clergyman in his role as an apostle
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in the church to other people, Christians in Corinth, regarding their position, their status,
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their responsibilities in their vocation as church members. Paul is not saying that no Christian,
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that none of those church members in Corinth could hold in terms of their vocation, a job
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in the civil magistrate, and that if they did hold said job, that there's no transcendent
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standard from the word of God that they should abide by.
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So when Paul says, we don't have business judging people outside of the church, that's
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Christians, when we're wearing our churchman hat, as it pertains to the realm, the sovereign
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sphere of the church, the ecclesiastical realm, as we are wearing our church hat, we don't judge
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outsiders. But guess what? As human beings, we hold, we wear more than one hat, right? You're
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a member of a local church. Great. Praise God. You're also a dad in the realm of the family and
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a husband or a mother and a wife, a brother, a sister. And you also have a job. You're a
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businessman, you're a farmer, or you're a police officer, or a council member, or a governor,
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or a mayor. And in all those things, unless we're going to make an argument, and this is what the
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radical two kingdom guys basically have to do, they won't, but this is the logical implication
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of their view. They basically have to say it is a sin for Christians to serve in the civil
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magistrate. But it's not. Clearly from the Bible, it's not. So then the question is, for those
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Christians who do serve in the realm of the state, they're members in the church, they're fathers in
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the home, husbands in the home, but then they're also a police officer or a governor or a council
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member in the state. So as it pertains to the home, what standard do they use? The Bible. They
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love their wives according to God's law. They love their children according to God's law. In the
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church, how do they function? According to God's law, according to the scripture. And in their
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position, their vocation in the civil magistrate, how do they function? Well, as a neutral entity,
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according to the principles of classic liberalism. As a libertarian? No. As a Christian.
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In this particular case, a Christian nationalist, a Christian civil magistrate, a Caesar submitted to
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Christ as king over the king, right? The law is king. Whose law? God's law. God's law is king.
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And so then what do those civil magistrates do? Those Christian civil magistrates do? Well,
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according to Romans 13, what they do is they judge outsiders. That's the point. They judge
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outsiders. So we do judge outsiders. We just don't do it in the sovereign sphere of the church.
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We need to have clear, that's all we're doing. We just need to have clear categories. So that
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doesn't mean Christians don't ever judge those outside of the church. No, Christians judge as
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they're wearing their church hat, as members of a local church, they judge those in the church.
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But then those very same Christians, especially with the post-millennial hope, as the leaven
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works through the whole batch of dough, as the nations are Christianized, as the mustard seed
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grows into a tree, as the stone cut by no human hands grows into a mountain that fills the earth,
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as more and more Christians come, some of those Christians are going to be civil magistrates.
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And what do they do? They act like Christian civil magistrates, which means they judge
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outsiders. And that is God judging outsiders, but through the agency that he instituted,
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which is Caesar, which is the civil magistrate. They are God's deacon, God's servant, God's
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avengers. And so we do judge. And the church doesn't carry it out. The church doesn't round
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up criminals that aren't members in the church and put them to death. The church doesn't do that,
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But the state should, depending on the crime and what the Bible says is the just punishment
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for it, the state puts them to death and some of those members of the civil magistrate will
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be Christians and all of them, even if they're not Christians, they should be, they should
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be informed and counseled on what is just and what is right and what is Christian by
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One of my roles as a local pastor is that I preach, first and foremost, I preach to
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I nourish them with the bread of life who is Christ. But I also, as a local pastor, I cry out
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to those in the civil magistrate who are outside of my church. I don't render or execute the
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judgment, but I tell them what God's judgment is and what they as God's servants should be doing.
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I say, as John the Baptist said to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.
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Why? Because Herod was a member in John the Baptist church. Nope. No, Herod wasn't a Christian.
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Herod wasn't, he wasn't a part of the church. Did that stop John the Baptist? No. John the Baptist
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said, you're a human being created in the image of God. You live in God's world. God has a
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transcendent law. It's not just a law for church people. It's a law for all people. Stop sinning.
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And John the Baptist speaks to him with authority. He doesn't carry out or execute a judgment,
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but he makes a judgment. And there is a difference. And Christians are called to do
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precisely that. Oh, hi. I didn't see you there. Thanks for sticking around. I've got an important
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